“As, according to you,” someone retorts, “no man is ungrateful, so, on the other hand, all men are ungrateful.” Yes, for, as we say, all fools are bad; moreover, he who has one vice has them all; but all men are foolish and bad; all men, therefore, are ungrateful. What, then? Are they not? Is it not an indictment that is everywhere brought against the human race? Is it not a universal complaint that benefits are thrown away, that there are only a very few who do not requite those who have treated them kindly with the greatest unkindness? Nor need you suppose that I am merely voicing the grumbling of the Stoics, who count every act as most evil and wrong that falls short of the standard of righteousness. Hear the voice of one who cries out condemnation upon all nations and peoples, a voice that issues, not from the home of philosophy, but from the midst of the crowd!
No guest from host is safe, nor daughter’s sire
From daughter’s spouse; e’en brothers’ love is rare.
The husband doth his wife, she him, ensnare.14
This goes even further — here crime takes the place of benefits, and the blood of those for whom blood ought to be shed is not spared; we requite benefits with the sword and poison. To lay hands upon the fatherland itself and crush it with its own fasces is to gain rank and power. Whoever does not stand above the commonweal thinks that he stands in a position that is low and degraded. The armies that she has given are turned against herself, and the general now harangues his men with: “Fight against your wives, fight against your children! Assail with arms your altars, hearths, and household gods!” Yes, you who had no right to enter the city without the permission of the senate even in order to triumph, who, when bringing back a victorious army, should have been given an audience outside the walls, now, after slaughtering your own countrymen, and stained with the blood of kinsmen, enter into the city with flying flags. Amidst the ensigns of soldiers let Liberty be dumb, and, now that all war has been banished afar, all terror suppressed, let that people who conquered and pacified the nations of the earth be beleaguered within its own walls, and shudder at the sight of its own eagles.